Climate

December 16, 2009 10:21 AM - Euractiv

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) will not be added to the list of technologies that industrial countries can invest in to offset their emissions, after some countries expressed their reservations at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen.
International climate negotiators have been debating whether to accept capturing CO2 from industrial installations and storing it underground (CCS) as a means of contributing to emission cuts. But they delayed any decisions until next year at the earliest, as no consensus was reached.

Over the past 16 years, the ski season has been steadily shrinking -- despite the fact resorts dramatically have improved their snowmaking, expanding it over a wider area and investing in technology that allows them to make snow at warmer temperatures.
But according to the National Ski Areas Association, Western ski resorts have been losing nearly a day of skiing a year since 1990. Whether you call it global warming or climate change, warming temperatures -- last week's cold snap notwithstanding -- are having a serious long-range effect on skiing.

December 16, 2009 07:27 AM - Editor, ENN

A new study released by NASA shows that the aquifers for California's primary agricultural region -- the Central Valley -- and its major mountain water source -- the Sierra Nevadas -- have lost nearly enough water combined to fill Lake Mead, America's largest reservoir. The findings, based on data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace), reflect California's extended drought and increased rates of groundwater being pumped for human uses, such as irrigation.

December 15, 2009 10:14 AM - Roger Greenway, ENN

The US already has years of experience with Cap and Trade. A sulfur dioxide (SO2) Cap and Trade program has proven an effective control strategy to lower SO2 emissions. It provides elements of market incentives and provides flexibility to facilities that emit large quantities of the pollutant in several ways. One of the most important ways is that it permits older facilities which may need to operate for a limited number of years to purchase â€œemissions creditsâ€ to continue operating without installing un-economic emissions controls by purchasing credits. The credits are created by other sources which control their emissions MORE than required under regulations. There is also an overall reduction in the program to benefit the environment so we are not just transferring emission from one plant to another.
A reflection of the effectiveness is that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that power plants across the country decreased emissions of SO2, a precursor to acid rain, to 7.6 million tons in 2008.

December 15, 2009 09:55 AM - Jeremy Hance, Mongabay

A new study by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program estimates that the sea will rise by 0.5 to 1.5 meters by 2100, threatening coastal cities and flooding island nations. This is double the predicted rise estimated by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (IPCC) in 2007, which did not incorporate sea level rise due to the melting of Greenland and Antarctica's ice sheets.

The United States has steadily outsourced record-breaking feats of engineering over the years, or stood by as other countries have eagerly grasped trophies for the worldâ€™s tallest building, biggest dam, longest bridge, or what have you.
Which is why it is comforting to learn a Worldâ€™s [ ]est is staying in America: Caithness Energy will begin construction next year in Oregon on the worldâ€™s biggest wind farm, with 845 MW of capacity.

December 14, 2009 10:03 AM - Times of India, and Reuters

The main sessions of UN climate talks in Copenhagen were suspended on Monday in a protest led by African nations and the developing
countries accusing rich countries of trying to wreck the existing UN Kyoto Protocol.
"This is a walk-out over process and form, not a walkout over substance, and that's regrettable," Australian Climate Change
Minister Penny Wong said of the action.
African nations later said they would return to the talks on Monday, allowing the negotiations to resume, after winning assurances that the conference put more focus on extending the existing Kyoto Protocol. "We're going back," Pa Ousman Jarju from the delegation of Gambia, told Reuters. The protest held up the talks that had been due to start at 1030 GMT.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Copenhagen today as part of a global protest to demand governments across the world agree a binding new global deal to tackle climate change.
The march and rally in the Danish capital, the world's largest ever protest about global warming, comes at the halfway point of the United Nations' climate summit in the city.

A draft climate pact unveiled on Friday revived hopes that U.N. talks might be able to pin down an international deal to fight global warming, but developing nations said they needed more cash from the rich.
With less than a week until more than 110 world leaders descend on the talks, the proposal would at least halve global emissions by 2050 seeking to bridge some of the long-standing rifts between rich and poor nations.